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The satellite era isn’t very old and the time satellites have been taking pictures of arctic sea ice is an even more recent thing. I’d like to know when the first meaningful picture of arctic sea ice was taken. (the 60’s?)

If you’re going to talk about “the other side”, then you should make sure what the other side is. I suspect here you mean the scientific consensus on AGW in the peer-reviewed literature, as compiled by the IPCC. Where does the other side “argue it both ways”?

I think you’ve got it backwards. It’s the “a consensus isn’t scientific” group that argues multiple ways, and assumes that each of them is equally valid. That’s why you have jerks saying both, “they can’t tell how warm it was in the past,” and, “the MWP was warmer than now.” There are other examples.

Hmm. Reversing the multi-year trend? Or did you mix up signal and noise?

That said, I’d be surprised if it broke 2007’s record. This doesn’t mean it isn’t decreasing (recall that due to noise, each year does NOT need to be lower than the last!), but it’s still cause for worry.

Look bud - My formal education finished up at high school - and even that was a long time ago. But I know this much - Your hyper sensitivity toward an obvious throwaway comment about a simple graph (that doesn’t show much by the way) indicates a weakness in your confidence of your beliefs about your global warming religion. You must believe! Have faith in Al! Ha!!!

thats true - and you are a kindly humble and good gentleman who needs to put us stupid folk in our place - your great knowledge and superior logic will be the salvation of us all. Thanks for fixing the climate dude.

(but I got stuff to do - I have to get the rent money into the bank and all that) you just show how desperate and ignorant you AGW deniers are becoming.

(I take issue with your charge that I am “becoming” ignorant and desperate. My desperation and ignorance is pretty steady if you check the graphs)

If you know so much then please tell us why the graph is meaningless. I bet you can’t.

(meaningless is your word bud - I said “simple” and that “it doesn’t show much”

The data in the graph is confirmed by taking sediment samples which show that the ice extent is at its lowest for at least 150,000 years and probably a lot longer than that.

(wait a minute - I thought that graph was dealing with 4 years within my life time and yet somehow it’s about 150,000 years - obviously I didn’t look at the whole thing close enough - oh well - it’s small print and all that)

You are just a blowhard ignorant pathetic person.

(no - I’m more than that. I’m just a blowhard ignorant pathetic person on the internet. In real life I’m not so bad - I have references!)

You said: “The satellite era isn’t very old and the time satellites have been taking pictures of arctic sea ice is an even more recent thing. I’d like to know when the first meaningful picture of arctic sea ice was taken. (the 60’s?)

Whatever - it’s like yesterday in climate terms”.

Just pointing out since you have proved and admitted that you do not know what you are talking about, that the data go back far further than the short period of time you seem to think we know about.

Try reading science texts and papers, you will learn a lot more there than what you are finding in the AGW denier sites you are using for your (mis)information.

What did Triciatim think during the melt season of 2007? Did Triciatim think, “OMG, the continuing, multi-year, downward trend is getting worse!” Naw, Triciatim was probably repeating a lot of talking points about special circumstances in 2007 – it’s not AGW, it’s special wind patterns, etc. Which is fine: the extraordinary reduction in ice was partly due to other factors (be mindful that special wind patterns could be set up by AGW, though). But here Triciatim says this is a reversal of a multi-year trend and ignores the issue that has been concerning folks, positive feedback. Multiyear ice drastically reduced in 2007, and the thin first year ice was eliminated fairly easily in 2008, reducing albedo (increasing absorption of solar energy), which limits the ability of ice to recover….

It means nothing.
Except to alarmists trying to hype up a failing AGW movement and teary eyed adolescents brain washed into thinking the polar bears are dying.
Ice melting up north in the summer is normal and increases and decreases with the North Atlantic oscillation cycle.
Meanwhile down south the alarmists completely ignore:Antarctic Sea Ice at Record High http://www.climate-skeptic.com/2007/09/antarctic-sea-i.html

What? - you mean the AGW folks cherry pick their data? No Way! - I refuse to believe they would look away from info that doesn’t support AGW. They are above such things - plus they are way to smart to cheat!

In the coming year as the cooling continues, I predict we will see more and more outrageous claims as the AGW faithful become more and more desperate to keep the scare alive.
With the actual climate not cooperating with the alarmists virtual climate(GCMs), they will begin to panic and say just about anything.
Watch for it. It will be amusing.

However, when we discuss percentages of papers in the scientific literature there are always some that make it through the peer review system and are either wrong and should never have been accepted, or are later shown to be wrong (ever hear about the so called “Iris effect? It doesn’t exist).

Rick and Gary are saying that it is impossible to know what the climate was like a hundred-thousand years ago?

Umm… as far as I know, the last major ice age isn’t a controversial subject. It happened, and I don’t know a single scientist that refutes that. So exactly how can we know about the last ice age unless we know what the climate was like?

Also when I hear things like “Over here in it’s getting colder, so how can we have Global Warming?” I have to laugh. It’s called Global Climate Change. Average temperatures are rising, but that makes more extreme weather locally. Extremes of warm weather and extremes of cold weather. Anyone who doesn’t know that, doesn’t understand Global Climate Change, and certainly has none of my respect when they try to argue about it.

Please, if you’re not going to make an effort to understand the other persons argument, don’t try to refute it.

“Rick and Gary are saying that it is impossible to know what the climate was like a hundred-thousand years ago?”

yep it’s impossible and scientists looking back that far have to interpret evidence. Those interpretations are subject to errors and adjustments and corrections and more corrections after that. As far as I know, they haven’t built a time machine that goes back to the past yet.

For your information a large part of science is based on interpreting data. That is why you have to be smart to be a scientist. I don’t know of any experimental instrument which gives completed papers and figures as output. Most that I have worked with give me numbers which I then have to be able to interpret. That is why 50% of experiments are considered to be “controls” so that proper interpretations can be made.

If you ever find any of the instruments you think scientists should be using then please send me one. I can then hire high school drop outs instead of PhD’s to do my work which will make it much cheaper.

A lot of what scientists do is establish understanding of the past to be wrong. It follows that current understandings by top scientists are subject to error as well. Thats why I don’t put faith in the current gospel being preached by the white coats, because 30 years from now there will be another major revision…. and that will be wrong too.

Scientists are just explorers searching through things and making up maps of what they think is going on. Right now theres a lot of talk of dragons in the sea.

"Fossil-fuel companies have spent millions funding anti-global-warming think tanks, purposely creating a climate of doubt around the science. DeSmogBlog is the antidote to that obfuscation." ~ BRYAN WALSH, TIME MAGAZINE